REMINISCENCES OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
KAMAKHYA NATH MITRA

IT was in the year 1897, the year of my graduation, that I had
the rare privilege of seeing at Calcutta the world-famous
Hindu monk, the epoch-making Swami Vivekananda, in the
house of the late Babu Balaram Bose, a devout bhakta well
known to the disciples of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. I went
to see him because I was profoundly interested in his message,
though its significance was not yet quite clear to me. A few
words may be necessary to explain my interest.

I was inquisitive from my boyhood and the question of
religion had a strange fascination for my mind. Just as in these
days the predominant interest of my countrymen is politics, so
in my boyhood their predominant interest was religion. It was
a time of great religious movements and controversies. There
was a constant play of action and reaction. On the one hand,
there was the rising tide of Brahmoism with which most
enlightened men were in sympathy. On the other, there was the
frantic effort of the so-called orthodoxy with its
pseudo-scientific and fanciful interpretation of the religion of the Hindus.
Then, again, there was Theosophy with its Mahatmas,
occultism, and spirit-world to which many educated people were
attracted because they did not like the Westernized outlook of
the Brahmos, and further because they felt flattered by the
uncritical eulogy of everything Hindu by Colonel Olcott of
America and Mrs. Annie Besant of England. It must be said at
the same time that not an inconsiderable section of
university-bred young men were free-thinkers, rationalists or agnostics
who swore by Mill, Comte, Spencer, Huxley, and Haeckel
and thought that all religions were equally false. Such was my
intellectual milieu as a boy and a youth. I listened to the
discussion of my elders and sometimes took part in the
discussions. Religion to me was not yet a craving of the soul. It was
more or less a question of intellectual interest. Though born in
an orthodox Hindu family, yet the influence that I felt most
was that of the Brahmo Samaj and also that of a near relative
who was an out and out agnostic. With the social programme
of the Brahmos I had every sympathy, but their theology I
could not accept. I was swaying between two forces —
Brahmoism and agnosticism.

It is in this state of mind that I finished my school education
and entered college. It is in the first year class, if I remember
right, that I first heard of Ramakrishna — yet I did not hear of
him from any fellow-countryman of mine but from a foreigner
— no less a personage than Professor Max Muller himself. I
just happened to read two articles from his pen in The
Nineteenth Century — one entitled Esoteric Buddhism,
a scathing criticism of Madame Blavatsky and her theosophy and the
other A Real Mahatman. This Real Mahatman was no other
than our Bhagavan Ramakrishna. A new horizon opened
before me. A new light flashed forth. And all this happened at
a mofussil town.

About a year after this, I read in the papers all about the
famous Parliament of Religions at Chicago and the resounding
triumph of Swami Vivekananda there. Who was this
Vivekananda? I came to know soon after that he was the chief
disciple of Ramakrishna, the Real Mahatman of Professor
Max Muller. I was eager to know all about the man and his
message. Unfortunately I was not present at Calcutta at the
time when the whole city turned out to receive him with the
tremendous ovation that signalizes the return of a conquering
hero. I read, however, glowing accounts of the event and saw
that honour such as this had never fallen to the lot of any man
on the Indian soil

From this time onward I read the reports of all the speeches
he delivered at different places in India. I felt that it was the
spirit of India herself that breathed through his utterances.
Such force, such fire was beyond the utmost stretch of my
imagination. Several speeches of Keshab Chandra Sen I had
read before. I had great admiration for his style, eloquence,
and religious fervour. But here was a new atmosphere
altogether, a new accent, a new emphasis, a new outlook at once
national and universal. Here was Hinduism in all its phases,
but how different from the Hinduism of the hide-bound
Sanatanists, pseudo-revivalists, the Scribes and Pharisees of India!
I was under a spell. The two speeches that impressed me most
were his
Calcutta Town-hall speech and his
Lahore address on Vedanta. When I read the Lahore address, I was a B.A.
student at Calcutta.

I eagerly waited for an opportunity to see the man. The
opportunity came, as I have said, in 1897. I went to see Swami
Vivekananda in the Calcutta residence of the late Babu
Balaram Bose in company with a class-fellow of mine, Babu
Narendra Kumar Bose.

We entered a hall which was full to overflowing. The people
assembled there were for the most part students of the
Calcutta colleges. They were all seated cross-legged on the floor
covered with duree and pharas (floor matting covered with
cotton sheets) In the centre was the seat meant for Swamiji. I
managed somehow to occupy a place in the hall, and we all
eagerly waited for the arrival of Swamiji. Perfect silence
prevailed. A few minutes passed and the Swami stepped in. His
gait was leonine and the dignity of his bearing simply royal.
His frame was athletic and robust. He had a gairic alkhalla
(ochre cloak) on, his feet were bare and his head, chin and lips
clean shaven — altogether a striking personality. He had the
look of a man born to command. He was soon seated, and
then he looked at us. His large eyes beamed with genius and
spiritual fire. He spoke in Bengali interlarded with English.
Words flowed from his lips, and we heard him with rapt
attention. Each word of his was like a spark of fire. His
manner was impassioned. It was clear to all that here was a
man with a message. His awakening power was wonderful.
We heard him and felt aroused. A new spirit was breathed into
us. Here was a man of faith in an age of doubt, sincere to the
backbone, a dynamo of supernal force. To have seen him was
education. To have heard him was inspiration. It was the most
memorable day in my life, and it is impossible for me ever to
lose its recollection.

What did he tell us all? To be strong and self-confident, to
renounce and serve. Strength was the burden of all that he
said. He poured torrential scorn upon what he called out
"negative education" and spoke enthusiastically on
man-making. He gave a vivid picture of our country's degradation
and the misery of the masses. How he felt for the poor, the
downtrodden and the oppressed! If we had a millionth part of
his feeling, the face of the country would change at once. He
spoke of the greatness of Hinduism and proudly said. "It is my
ambition to conquer the world by Hindu thought — to see
Hindus everywhere from the North Pole to the South Pole."
As he uttered these words I saw in him the very Napoleon of
Religion. I saw the warrior's heart throbbing beneath the
yellow robe of the sannyasin. Not a mild Hindu at all this
Swami Vivekananda but the most aggressive Hindu I have
ever seen in my life. He was made of the same stuff of which
Alexander and Caesar were made — only his role was
different.

Some of his words are still ringing in my ears and they are
these: "You must have steel nerves and cast-iron muscles. A
moment's vigorous life is better than years of jelly-fish
existence. Cowards die many time before their death. An honest
atheist is a thousand times better than a hypocritical theist.
Don't be jealous, for the slaves are jealous. Virtue is
heroism — from vir in Latin which means man and which again is
the same word as vira in Sanskrit."

After about two hours the Swami left the hall and we
dispersed in different directions. I returned to my lodgings but
the words of the Swami filled the air. I could think of nothing
but Swami Vivekananda. There stood his heroic figure
which-ever way I turned.

I could not resist the temptation of seeing him again, and so
on the next day I went once more to the house of the late Babu
Balaram. On this day there was no great gathering. Swamiji
was seated in the veranda on an asana surrounded by a group
of his brother-disciples. The Brahma-Sutras with Shankara's
commentary was being read out by one of them, and Swamiji
passed explanatory remarks here and there. Today's
atmosphere was different altogether. It was all very quiet. Soon
after the reading was finished, one of the Swami's
brother-disciples spoke of the spirit-world and read an extract from a
theosophical book. Swamiji at once came down upon him and
extinguished him completely. I saw that the Swami was a hater
of spookism. He clearly said that all this was weakening and
debilitating and had nothing to do with true religion. After
this, many light topics were introduced, and then Swamiji
laughed and joked like a child. Here was another mood. I said
to myself: Is it the same Swami I saw yesterday — the
thundering Swami in dead earnest?

It was about a year after this that I saw the Swami once
more — and this time on the platform. Now I was face to face
with Vivekananda the orator. The scene was the Star Theatre
of Calcutta. The occasion was the introduction of Sister
Nivedita to the Calcutta public. The hall was crammed to
suffocation. On the dais were seated many distinguished
persons. I remember only Sir Jagadish Bose and Sir Ananda
Charlu among them. Swami Vivekananda was in his best
form. He wore a gairic turban and a long-flowing robe which
was also gairic in hue. He introduced Sister Nivedita in a neat
little speech. The Sister addressed the meeting in a graceful
style. Then rose Swami Vivekananda, and he spoke on his
foreign policy.
The speech is to be found in the Mayavati
Memorial Edition of his Complete Works. He brought
forward a scheme of his future missionary work in the West. The
speech was full of fire. Such thrilling voice, rich intonation,
variation of pitch. strong and sonorous accent with occasional
explosion as of the bolt of heaven I have never heard in my life
nor am I likely to hear again. Sometimes he paced to and fro
on the platform as he spoke and folded his arms across his
chest. Sometimes he faced the audience and waved his hand.
His expressions flowed free and fast with the rush and
impetuously of a mountain torrent. His words were like the
roaring of a cataract. Well might The New York Herald say:
"He is an orator by divine right." Altogether a more majestic,
striking, and magnetic personality it is hard to conceive. We
heard him spell bound. Each word was an arrow that went
straight to the heart.

Such is my recollection of Swami Vivekananda. To fully
understand his message I read subsequently all his speeches
and writings and almost all about his Master. There is not a
single problem of our individual, social, and political life, that
he has not touched and illuminated. He has given a new
impulse to the country. So far as I am concerned, he is growing
more and more vivid to me with the lapse of years, and I see
his stature dilated today "like Teneriffe or Atlas". His
message is the message of freedom, strength, fearlessness, and
self-confidence. It is the eternal truths of our religion that he
has preached in a new way, in modem terms, and he has also
shown how these truths are to be applied to the present
conditions of India and the rest of the world. A more
constructive thinker and inspiring teacher I have not seen in my life. I
do not know a single self-sacrificing Indian worker of the
present century who has not been influenced more or less by
his thoughts, words, and example. More than anybody else he
has made India respected abroad. Many a child of the West
has found in his message the solace of his life and the solace of
his death. It is true that at the present moment the
predominant interest of our country has become political, but the better
minds believe with Swami Vivekananda that spirituality must
be the basis of all our activities. It is difficult to say what form
our national reconstruction will exactly take, it is difficult to
predict anything about the future of the world as a whole, but I
sincerely believe that the ideas and ideals of Swami
Vivekananda are destined to play a very important part in the history
of the human race. May his influence grow from more to more!